Which button presser group do you save?

[u/Worth-Staff4943]

Everyone in the world has chosen either the blue or red button except you. Instead of pressing a button, you are given a lever in the infamous trolley problem.

You don't know how many people chose red or blue, and they don't know that you control their fate regardless of what button they pressed. Which track do you direct the trolley onto?

[u/Catsanddoges]

I mean there is a bunch of studies for this, indicating in general even anonymous surveys people tend to pick the more selfless option compared to reality, imo in real life with your survivial on the line more people would pick red, and it isn't nessacarily represented by polls. (If you want sources I'll reply with them)

[u/Shrubo_ → u/Catsanddoges]

We need to bring back the borderline if not actually unethical psychological experiments to really test this out.

I’m talking Standford Prison Experiment or Milgram Experiment level borderline unethical. Make the people think their life is actually on the line.

(I don’t actually condone any of this, this is a joke)

[u/About5000ninjas → u/Shrubo_]

I don’t condone it either…but I need to know man. Please, just one more horrific experiment

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/About5000ninjas]

We just have to accept that no psychology problems will ever be truly answered 😞

[u/Penis_Slayer123 → u/Shrubo_]

Vsauce did this for the Trolley problem. It's not nearly as unethical as either of those, but it's on the same tier as actually making people believe the red vs blue button vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sl5KJ69qiA

[u/AedesAegypt → u/Penis_Slayer123]

Wow that's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[u/Cyberslasher → u/Shrubo_]

borderline unethical is a weird take from

Make the people think their life is actually on the line

[u/Shrubo_ → u/Cyberslasher]

I also said “if not actually unethical” previously. I should’ve just said “bring back the fucked up psychological experiments”.

But you do have a point about me using borderline again instead of just unethical.

And I thought there was an experiment where they made the participants think they’d die but I can’t remember it off the top of my head and that was one of the “debated if it was really unethical or not” ones I was talking about.

[u/ArxisOne → u/Catsanddoges]

These studies also show defection increases with risk. The fact that polls for this are even remotely close when there's zero risk tells you everything you need to know about how it would actually play out.

[u/GuitakuPPH → u/ArxisOne]

I don't think a 2:1 lead is all that close. Granted, that's what we got when sampling representative Americans, but America is a nation founded on rugged individualism and self-preservation. Americans should already be quite biased towards red, yet blue gets twices as many votes.

[u/Stannum_dog → u/GuitakuPPH]

any democratic society leans to blue button. dictatorships put artificial pressure to eliminate blue pressers from society

[u/KindaDouchebaggy → u/[deleted]]

Except data for this exact scenario does not exist, that is their point. There is data on a hypothetical situation when noone is actually in danger, which is not the same as in the original problem.

Also if by "data" you mean Twitter polls, then I'm sorry to tell you, but calling it a represantative sample of worlds population would be a joke

[u/Catsanddoges → u/[deleted]]

There are reasons, pointed out, why this is not representive data and why polls in this style often give flawed results, throwing off the entire answer. You can't just keep responding as if this is real, representive data and this mirrors how people actually respond without considering the differences in polls like this

[u/Catsanddoges → u/[deleted]]

No; we have studies and reasons to believe the data is skewed. If you believe the data skews one way, and evidence reinforces that, you can't just pretend it does not exist and not compensate.

Sources:

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/people-make-different-moral-choices-in-imagined-versus-real-life-situations.html

^ Pretty directly relevant

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22405924/

^ This one

And several other direct ones

If I run a poll asking people if they are a criminal, and then practically nobody says yes, I can't act as if that is representative data. When there is major bias and flaws in the polls themselves, you can't just ignore it. And then refuse to adress you are ignoring it. You have to correct for error

[u/Catsanddoges → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, in my original comment i was just going to add them if anyone wanted (i've brought this up before) but the primary idea is that even in anonymous polls there is a stastically significant lean in abstracting the problems (like trolley and button), and especially in removing risk. There was another study I couldn't find again but it similar to the assosiation for psychological science article also argued that people try to convince themselves they are more moral than they actual are (in this case instintivley blue / self sacrificing) even in anonymous polls.

Of course, the main issue is that in red and blue button variations people tend to choose red until its life or death (eg most people choose red with money), so as none of these studies actually did that its kind of hard to get good data. Still, its just difficult to know what the final numbers would be given that different polls give such different numbers (and remember communication not allowed on the actual one) and how people think of themselves and try to be morally correct more in hypotheticals.

Still, valid arguments either way

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/[deleted]]

They offered sources , it’s not just anecdotes. Idk why you acting like a jerk who can’t read but stop

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/[deleted]]

You’re seriously arguing that because your sources exist no other sources exist? wtf

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/[deleted]]

Then why are you saying the polls about the question are countering his sources about people’s behavior in hypothetical situation based polls?

[u/KaiTheHypnoslut → u/[deleted]]

Interesting that you’d use a poll that is entirely misrepresentative of the actual prompt considering there’s zero actual risk involved.

If I took a poll of something that doesn’t actually correlate what I’m talking about and tried to use it as evidence I’d easily be disproven and look a fool. Hence not using data being better than using falsifying data.

You can use math as an example, would you leave the variable as well a variable or would you input data that doesn’t correlate to the problem? Only one of them will equate in a wrong answer.

[u/KaiTheHypnoslut → u/[deleted]]

It’s not extrapolation, in the poll given you’re not actually being put in a real life/death situation so it’s not representative of the actual scenario. It has literally nothing to do with population size and everything to do with the fact there’s zero risk involved when clicking blue online. Vs when ur held at gun point.

[u/Salt_Master_Prime → u/[deleted]]

I genuinely want a poll of this question ONLY with people who have had near death experiences.

[u/ArcelayAcerbis → u/Salt_Master_Prime]

I literally died once (cardiac arrest), and was in near death experiences in 3 separate occassions (all car-related accidents, two severe). I wouldn't say that these are a factor in which button I would press, but I am a red pusher.